Sweet Dreams 2(45)

“Um…” I mumbled and tucked some hair behind my ear. “Mornin’.”

His eyes followed my hand, then roamed my head before they came back to mine. “You tamed your hair.”

He would comment on my hair.

“Uh… yeah,” I muttered realizing I felt self-conscious and even shy. Why, I had no earthly clue, I just did.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” I repeated.

“Yeah, Ace,” he said coming into the closet. “Why?”

As he got close, I tipped my head back to look at him. “It was a rat’s nest.”

His hand came up, his fingers sliding into the wetted hair at the side of my head then through it, down the length pulling it over my shoulder. The tips of his fingers fiddled with the ends of my hair at my breast as he watched, then his gaze came to my face.

“It was you,” he stated.

“Me?” I asked.

He got closer. “Yeah, babe, you.” His fingers left my hair so his hand could go to where my head met my neck and he tilted my head back further with the pad of his thumb against the underside of my jaw, doing this while his other hand came to rest at my waist. “Wild,” he said softly. “Hot. I liked it.”

“You liked my hair in a rat’s nest?” I asked it like I couldn’t believe it mainly because I couldn’t. I had a lot of hair normally, it was hard enough to tame with beaucoup products, wielding a roller brush and an industrial strength hair dryer. When untamed, there was so much of it, no other word for it, it was huge.

His thumb slid along my jaw and the touch, the warmth coming from his body, his proximity and the look in his eyes made my nipples tingle.

“I liked it wild,” he said.

“Oh,” I replied because there was no other response to that and I liked that he liked my hair wild. That said, I pretty much liked that he liked anything about me.

He grinned.

I stared at his mouth as it started to get closer.

“Is Jonas here?” I asked against his lips.

“Kiss me good mornin’,” he demanded against mine, ignoring my question.

“Tate.”

Both his hands tightened. “Babe.”

I gave in, put my hands to his abs and pressed my mouth to his.

Then I pulled back and reiterated, “Is Jonas here?”

Tate’s hand slid back to wrap around my neck. “He’s here, he’s still half-asleep which means we got about ten minutes to make out in the closet. So, like I said, kiss me good mornin’.”

“I just did,” I reminded him.

“You love me?” he asked suddenly and, at his question, my stomach flipped then twisted.

I stared up at him unsure of myself and back to shy.

Then, without me telling it to do so, my mouth whispered, “Yes.”

“Then fuckin’ kiss me good morning, Ace,” he demanded softly but firmly.

“Oh all right,” I grumbled because he was being bossy and also because he didn’t return the sentiment.

My hands moved to curl around the sides of his waist, I went up on my toes and pressed my lips to his, harder this time, my mouth opening under his. His hand slid to the small of my back, pressing in, the fingers of his other hand slid into my hair and his head slanted as his tongue glided into my mouth.

At the taste of him, I melted into him, my arms locking around him and we kissed good morning.

When his mouth detached from mine, he muttered, “Now that’s good morning.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“You went to get Jonas without me,” I took us full circle.

“You don’t get enough sleep, babe,” he replied. “You were out, you need to sleep when you actually can sleep so I let you sleep. I was gone twenty minutes.”

This was nice. I liked it when Tate was nice. I liked Tate all the time, even when he was a jerk, which made me slightly insane, but it was Tate and I had to admit, I liked all things Tate, even when he was a jerk. But I liked it when he was nice the best. So, since he was being nice, I pressed deeper into him.

“Is he okay?” I asked softly.

“No tellin’. He’s a zombie,” Tate answered. “We’ll know more when he pulls out of it.”

I looked over his shoulder toward the door. “I need coffee, honey, and I need to make Jonas French toast.”

“Ace,” Tate called and my eyes went back to see his were looking over my shoulder and down, toward my suitcases.

He didn’t speak for several seconds so I asked, “Tate, what?”

He looked at me and he muttered, “Nothin’,” let me go and moved to my side. “Coffee,” he finished.

I nodded and we walked out of the room, down the hall and I saw Jonas on a stool at the island, slouched into an elbow, head in his hand, staring blankly at Buster who was sitting on the floor in front of him looking up at him.